Sen. Marc Pacheco proposes minimum wage raise

Calling it a matter of “economic justice,” state Sen. Marc Pacheco, D-Taunton, has filed legislation to incrementally raise the state’s minimum wage to $10 per hour over two years, which would likely make it the highest in the nation.

Calling it a matter of “economic justice,” state Sen. Marc Pacheco, D-Taunton, has filed legislation to incrementally raise the state’s minimum wage to $10 per hour over two years, which would likely make it the highest in the nation.

“Massachusetts is one of the highest wage rate bases in the nation, so this should put us as one of the highest minimum wages in the nation,” Pacheco said. “I think it’s a matter of economic justice and fairness.”

The current minimum wage is $8 per hour. The minimum wage hike was the result of legislation Pacheco sponsored in 2006. Seven other states have a minimum wage that matches or exceeds that of Massachusetts.

The federal minimum wage is $7.25. Washington State’s minimum wage of $8.67 is currently the highest in the nation.

“If you go back to 1968 and look at the minimum wage back then and adjust it for inflation, that rate would be $10 per hour in today’s money,” Pacheco said. “The logic is to get it up to the buying power minimum wage workers had in 1968.”

Pacheco said he wants to tie the minimum wage to the national rate of inflation.

Some in the business community expressed concerns that a minimum wage increase, particularly in a fragile economy, could be damaging.

“That is really going to hurt small businesses,” Taunton Area Chamber of Commerce President Kerrie Babin said. “This is really not good for the business community at all.”

Babin said that in the current economy, many businesses are already uneasy about hiring. A higher minimum wage, she said, would further discourage them from adding new employees.

“While everyone’s entitled to a high paying job, it’s a really tough time to increase the minimum wage, and we already have one of the highest in the country.”

Babin also said the cost of doing business in Massachusetts is already very high and that proposals such as raising the minimum wage and mandating paid sick leave — on top of health insurance costs that rise significantly each year — add to that cost.

Pacheco, who testified on his legislation Thursday, said he’s heard the same arguments every time he files legislation to raise the minimum wage and believes those fears to be unfounded.

“There’s never been a time when a minimum wage was proposed when I’ve heard any other comment but that,” Pacheco said. “It’s never a good time in the eyes of some to increase the minimum wage. If you look at study after study, there’s been no job loss as a result of increasing the minimum wage.”

He pointed to university studies showing that raising the minimum wage has not reduced employment.

A recent report by the Congressional Budget Office, he added, found that income for the top 1 percent of households grew by 275 percent between 1979 and 2007, while income for the bottom 20 percent of earners grew by only 18 percent.

Page 2 of 2 - “That’s the frustration we see spilling out onto streets of our nation, for example, with the Occupy movement,” Pacheco said. “Their frustrated with what’s happened with wealth disparity and what’s happened with the economy.”